Please watch the video above. It is is a unique discussion on Alexander’s Hamilton’s contributions to economic progress through examiningthe policies of China, Africa, and the U.S.
September 3, 2026
China believes it is better to contribute to the development of African nations, to not have their populations suffer in poverty, but rather experience a continuous rising standard of living. The West does not!
Contrary to constant maligning of China by the West, accusing it of conducting a new form of colonialism against the people of Africa, China has been an indispensable partner for development. There is not and never has been a “debt-trap “ policy to seize mineral resources of African nations. Any American official repeating this defamation is either an ignorant fool or a liar. The West dominated the African continent for decades, while China has only recently in this century, expanded its involvement with the nations of Africa. The creation by China, of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2003, has established a unique political, economic cooperative relationship with African nations.
As Alexander Hamilton understood, and his followers of his school of economic thought, which became known as the American System of Political Economy knew, the key to the growth of a nation, and its economy, is to increase the productive powers of labor. This requires a growth in manufacturing, it requires massive investments in infrastructure, and it requires nurturing the creativity of the population to discover new scientific principles, from which new technologies are derived. With the application of new technological advancements, the economy is able to leap, if you will, to a higher level of productivity, generating greater economic output.
This is what should be understood by Western officials. There are people in China who think this way. Presently, we don’t have people in the West, and the United States in particular, who refuse to comprehend these essential elements of economic growth. The Western political-financial elites are mired in a monetarist world dominated by making money, which they foolishly believe is wealth. They lack any understanding of what the requirements are to actually develop an economy physically, nor the necessity to promote a culture that fosters the creative potential of its people. They don’t understand the difference between making a so called profit from monetary speculation, the stock market, or manipulating the market, as opposed to increasing the profitability of the physical economy. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is attacked by the United States and the West, who fail to comprehend that the BRI is a modern day extension of Hamilton’s economic principles.
China has proved, beyond any question, that their investments in science and technology, infrastructure, and manufacturing in particular, have transformed their economy, their society. With the proven reality of this success, China can lead the Global South on a pathway of real economic development
The African continent is projected to have the largest population in the world-approximately 2.5 billion people by 2050. That’s not a burden. It is a resource of new creative minds, which are the real source of value for any economy, more valuable than minerals or artificial intelligence.
I believe watching this video will help you understand these principles that I have outlined above.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Examine the exponential growth of electricity in China in a mere forty years.China, in 2000 had zero high-speed rail trains, in 2025 it has 50,000 kilometers of rail, more than the rest of the world combined.
August 28, 2026
The true measurement of an economy is not money, not macro statistics, not stock market indexes: it is the improvement in the material standard of living of the population.Liu Chang, Spokesperson for the China Embassy, speaking on July 31, described the elementary metric of economic development:It’s about making people’s lives better.
As the Chinese understand very well, a key factor in improving the standard of living of its population, requires massive infrastructure investments. The Chinese government are unsurpassed, among all nations of the world, in expanding vital categories of infrastructure that are indispensable to increasing the productivity of their entire economy. As African nations have experienced, without infrastructure, especially electricity and rail, real economic growth will be thwarted, if not impossible. Examine the two graphs above. These images are startling. However, they should not be shocking. For the last two generations China has concentrated on industrializing its economy, becoming the leading nation in manufacturing, ship building and the refinement of critical minerals. This has resulted in lifting 700 million of its people from abject poverty and improving the standard of living for all members of its society. China is committed to assisting the Global South, which encompasses the majority of the world’s population, land mass, and minerals. As the U.S. led Western alliance of nations thrash about in their collapsing rules-based order, China and the Global South can create a new system, a new paradigm of political-economic relationships premised on a common share future of economic development for mankind.
The presentation below is reprinted from the August 21, 2026 issue of Executive Intelligence Review magazine,
From a Grain of Rice to a World of Greater Equality—China and the Global South: A Story of Shared Development
Liu Chang, Spokesperson for China Embassy
by Liu Chang, July 31, 2026
Ladies and Gentlemen, first of all, I want to say thank you to the Schiller Institute for inviting me. It’s my real pleasure to join you today. Today’s topic is “A Dialogue of Civilizations: Development or World War III,” so I will emphasize the part of development, and share some thoughts of how China sees global development. My title is “China and the Global South: A Story of Shared Development.”
When it comes to development, people tend to think of GDP, investment, or massive infrastructure projects. But for most families, development looks much simpler. It means having lights during the night; roads remaining open through the rainy season; a doctor available when someone falls ill; a young person learning skills that lead to a decent job. These may sound like ordinary things, but that’s exactly what development is about. It’s not about making the numbers look better; it’s about making people’s lives better. Development matters when a family can feel the difference, and when an entire community can share in its benefits.
Not long ago, I read a story about farmers in Madagascar planting hybrid rice developed in China. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, these varieties can produce between 9 and 11 tons of rice per hectare, compared with about 2.8 tons for traditional local varieties. Those figures are more than statistics. To a local farmer, they could mean something more tangible; fuller granaries, a little more income, and a better chance of keeping a child in school.
So, what can a single grain of rice tell us? It reminds us that development cooperation is only meaningful if it improves ordinary lives. And in today’s inter-connected world, it raises four larger questions: How do we make development more inclusive? How do we protect it with lasting peace? How do we enable different civilizations to learn from one another? And how do we build a fairer system of global governance? These are exactly the questions that China has been seeking to answer.
China’s Four Global initiatives
First, how can the fruits of development benefit more people? China proposed the Global Development Initiative in 2021. Under the initiative, more than $23 billion have been mobilized and over 1,800 cooperation projects launched. But numbers alone do not tell the whole story. The more important question is whether these efforts can change people’s lives for the better. In Madagascar, as I mentioned earlier, change means higher yields from the hybrid rice. In Papua New Guinea, change could be a stand of Juncao grass allowing small farmers to grow edible mushrooms without cutting down forests, while creating new sources of income. Or it could be a Luban workshop in Kazakhstan, where local students learn practical skills in areas such as renewable energy, automation, and rail transportation based on the needs of local industries.
What China seeks is not simply to deliver a project and move on. It is to work with local partners to develop skills, share appropriate technologies, and create opportunities that can take root, continue to grow, and benefit local communities over the long term.
Rice is flourishing in Madagascar, the island nation which now has Africa’s largest area cultivating high-yield, hybrid rice. In 2007, China launched the hybrid rice demonstration center project in Madagascar, one of 10 such ag-tech specialty centers across the continent.FAO/Mijoro
Rice is flourishing in Madagascar, the island nation which now has Africa’s largest area cultivating high-yield, hybrid rice. In 2007, China launched the hybrid rice demonstration center project in Madagascar, one of 10 such ag-tech specialty centers across the continent.
Second, what protects the gains of development? For many developing countries, security means far more than the absence of war. It also means hospitals can continue to operate during floods, droughts, or public health crises. It means stable access to food and energy. It means having the resilience to emerge from challenges. A war can destroy a school overnight. A severe natural disaster or public health emergency can set back the development of an entire community for years.
This is why China proposed the Global Security Initiative in 2022. It calls for a vision of security that is common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable. It emphasizes resolving differences through dialogue and consultation, while also addressing global challenges such as food security, energy security, public health, and climate change. Peace is the foundation on which development grows. And development itself can help address the root causes of conflict and instability, creating stronger foundations for lasting peace.
Third, can different paths of development respect and enrich one another? China’s answer is yes. Every country has its own history, culture, and path of development. Cooperation should not begin with the assumption that one country must first become a copy of another. True civilizational exchange is not about one side changing the other, nor replacing the other. It is about learning from each other with equality and respect, drawing inspiration from different experiences, and allowing diverse civilizations to grow together through dialogue rather than compete through exclusion.
In 2023, China proposed the Global Civilization Initiative, which recognizes that the greatest value of mutual learning between civilizations is not to erase differences, but to make those differences a starting point for mutual understanding and mutual reinforcement.
Last but not the least, who should shape global rules, and whom should those rules serve? Today, the contribution of the Global South to global development continues to grow. Yet in some international institutions, its representation and voice remain limited.
In 2025, China proposed the Global Governance Initiative, which emphasizes sovereign equality, the rule of international law, multilateralism, a people-centered approach, and action-oriented cooperation. The goal is not to tear down the existing international system or start over from scratch. Rather, it is to make that system more representative, more effective, and better able to respond to the concerns of developing countries. Global rules should be shaped through the participation of more countries, not written by a few and simply accepted by the rest. The affairs of the world should be discussed and decided together. And the benefits of development should be shared by all.
These four Global Initiatives reflect China’s vision for the future of our world: development gives people hope; security protects that hope; civilizations help us understand one another; and governance provides fairer institutions for shared progress.
From Poverty to Development
China has always been a member of the Global South. We have experienced the long journey from poverty to development, and we understand that there is no single model for modernization, nor any shortcut that can simply be copied and pasted. China is willing to share its experience, but not turn that experience into a prescription for others. We are willing to provide support, but not make decisions on behalf of our partners. We are willing to build bridges, roads, and hospitals, but we also want to work with countries around the world to develop the talent that allows people to shape their own future.
China looks forward to continuing to work with countries around the world so that development is no longer the privilege of a few, but a right shared by all; so that modernization is not painted in a single color, but reflects a landscape of diverse paths and possibilities; and so that every country and every people can take part in shaping our shared future.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
View my discussion in the video above from July 30, with Grace Asagra on her podcast, Quantum Nurse.
August 20, 2026
Please view my video interview above, which is my first discussion since my three-week visit to several cities in China during June and July. I encourage all citizens, especially of the United States to visit China and see for yourself this interesting, shall I say fascinating society, with its rich culture and history, and its engaging people. This is the best way to protect your mind from being brainwashed by the anti-China propaganda spewed forth by U.S. media and our silly and ignorant politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
The reporting of China by the West, in particular the U.S., completely mischaracterizes this dynamic society with its mixture of former dynasties and ultra-modern cities that have emerged in China over recent decades. Most of what the U.S. establishment reports about China he is unfortunately contaminated with the zero-sum mentality of their rules-based international order. China has a different perspective for the world world, which is based on the idea of creating a common future for mankind.
Their development has been phenomenal over the last forty plus years since the opening up of China. China has become the leading nation in manufacturing, in high speed rail construction, in robotics, in nuclear fission energy production, in ship building, and in mining of critical and rare earth minerals. As well, a leading nation in space exploration, fusion research, and chip technology. In 2013, China reached out to the rest of the world with the Belt and Road initiative, which has eagerly been received by the Global South. In Africa, where the West was dominant in its control over the continent after the liberation movements of the 1960s, they did not invest in the future of Africa, they looted it of its natural resources. China has pursued a different policy. In this century, China has invested in Africa’s infrastructure, especially electricity and railroads. This cannot be denied. U.S. propaganda that China has used so called debt-trap diplomacy to seize African assets or its mineral resources is simply not true
It is crucial that political leaders in the West and thoughtful citizens in the United States and Europe, recognize that the western controlled system known as the rules-based order is declining, and the world is shifting towards development of the Global South. With this transformation taking place today, we should be wise enough to recognize that cooperating with China is in the self-interest of the United States and its citizens. We should define future missions of collaboration with China that will advance civilization, such as; the elimination of poverty in Africa, the colonization of the moon, and the full scale use of nuclear fusion energy. This is what American statesman and leaders should do.
The pillars of progress for all nations are universally identical: satisfying the material needs of the population and nurturing their minds through stimulating economic development, creativity, and agape in society.
All of this is discussed in my hour long podcast above, which I strongly recommend you view. I believe you will benefit.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Editor’s Note: For years, the US has viewed China as a rival in Africa and sought to cast a shadow over China-Africa cooperation with misleading narratives such as the “China shock.” Against this backdrop, the overseas edition of the People’s Daily (PD) interviewed Lawrence Freeman (Freeman), an American international affairs expert, political economic analyst for Africa, who recently traveled across multiple Chinese cities with his wife. With 30 years of experience on the African continent, Freeman calls for abandoning Cold War thinking and zero-sum competition, stresses the importance of China-US cooperation in advancing global development, and shares his perspective on how the American public should view China.
PD: The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has provided substantial support to Africa’s infrastructure development and economic and social progress. As an expert on African issues, what tangible changes do you believe the BRI has brought to African nations?
Freeman: Africa has long been plagued by a huge infrastructure gap. China has offered tremendous assistance to a great many African countries through the BRI. For decades, I have been deeply involved in work related to the development of Africa. The Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway was constructed by China, and the Port of Djibouti was built with Chinese aid. Without China’s participation, Africa’s development would likely not have advanced so rapidly. China has extended credit support to Africa and built a large number of hospitals, schools, roads, ports, airports, railways and power plants. While Africa’s demand remains huge, China’s contributions are highly commendable.
The BRI enlightens us that mutual benefit and win-win cooperation is the right path forward. More than 370 years ago, the Peace of Westphalia established the principles of equality and sovereignty. In the course of history that followed, sovereign equality has evolved into the most important norm governing state-to-state relations. The prosperity and development of all countries are in the fundamental interests of the US itself. As other countries grow their economies, they will create more economic and trade opportunities for the US. We should break free from outdated, rigid and backward mindsets, discard the logic of win-lose, confrontation and conquest versus subjugation, and embrace a higher vision of development, replacing mutual confrontation with common development.
Lawrence Freeman Photo: He Jianing/People’s Daily
PD: China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It has also rolled out poverty reduction programs in Africa through cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and other channels. What lessons can Africa draw from China’s poverty reduction model and practices?
Freeman: From what I have learned about China’s development journey, a key driver of its rapid growth is large-scale infrastructure investment. China’s high-speed railway network now exceeds 50,000 kilometers in operation, surpassing the combined total of all other countries in the world. China has built a vast number of new energy power stations, including thermal power, nuclear power and other types.
China has a clear, complete path to poverty alleviation and development: It boasts the world’s largest and fast-growing manufacturing sector; its shipbuilding industry leads the globe, and it is also at the forefront of space exploration. Large-scale infrastructure development, emphasis on scientific and technological R&D and the rapid expansion of manufacturing are core factors behind economic growth and poverty eradication. China’s poverty reduction practices have proven practical and effective. All the African countries I work with are eager to learn from China’s experience and fully master this development model. I believe Africa can fully draw on China’s successful experience.
PD: Today, humanity faces multiple global challenges, including climate change, regional conflicts, poverty and public health crises. In your view, how can international cooperation help tackle these problems?
Freeman: The Western world is currently in the grip of a severe crisis, lacking long-term development visions and blueprints. China has put forward the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity, calling for attention to the common interests of all people, which is of great significance. Mankind needs to establish a new development paradigm centered on development, which is also the direction of my long-term research. The world is never a zero-sum game; the essence of human development is pioneering and progress-driven.
All countries take the well-being of their people as their fundamental goal. To achieve this, we must first meet people’s basic material needs – housing, employment, electricity, sound infrastructure – so that everyone can live a decent and meaningful life. Only when people have sufficient leisure time can creativity be cultivated. For instance, China produced great philosopher Confucius, and the West had Socrates and Plato. But, weighed down by the pressures of daily life, few people study these classics today, leading to biased perceptions and the conflicts that follow.
Most conflicts in today’s world are rooted in poverty. When people cannot live stable, dignified lives, strife and plunder emerge. If the US, China and all countries work together to build a new development paradigm and steadily raise living standards across the globe, most causes of war will disappear. If the whole world can eliminate absolute poverty as China has done, the lives of all humanity will be fundamentally transformed for the better.
PD: China-US relations are among the most important bilateral relations in the world. This year, the two sides jointly set a new orientation for China-US relations: building a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.” How do you interpret this positioning?
Freeman: The Chinese government has stressed that the “constructive strategic stability” should be a positive stability with cooperation as the mainstay, a sound stability with moderate competition, a constant stability with manageable differences and an enduring stability with promises of peace. Previous US policies toward China, however, were imbued with the dangerous zero-sum game mindset, which I believe lacks careful consideration. The US should take the initiative to identify areas for China-US cooperation. As the world’s two largest economies, China and the US can carry out joint cooperation projects that benefit the people of both countries and all nations around the world.
We met senior citizens singing and dancing in a Shanghai park in morning.
PD: What areas of cooperation between China and the US do you think have the most promising prospects for tangible implementation?
Freeman: The first is research and development of controlled nuclear fusion energy. China is a global leader in nuclear fusion, having achieved stable plasma operation for over 1,000 seconds. The US shelved its nuclear fusion programs decades ago, but nuclear fusion represents the future of energy development, delivering far higher energy output than existing nuclear fission power plants of the same scale. It is still not too late for China and the US to collaborate in this field.
The second is space exploration. The US has spent an extremely long time preparing for its return to the Moon. China has already achieved a soft landing of a probe on the far side of the Moon. Human civilization advances through scientific exploration. Space exploration benefits all of humanity, and the two sides have every reason to cooperate in this area.
The third is joint efforts to eliminate poverty and famine in Africa. If China and the US work together to boost Africa’s development and raise local living standards, the continent will become a global economic and trade hub, benefiting the entire world.
PD: You and your wife have recently visited many cities across China. What are your impressions of the Chinese people and Chinese society?
Freeman: There is one moment that sticks in my mind: I once met a little boy, and I said “Nihao” to him. He immediately replied “Hello.” We chatted freely in English the whole time, and the passersby around us were all delighted. It was such a warm, charming scene – an elderly American chatting effortlessly with a young Chinese boy.
While I was attending conferences, my wife took the subway alone to visit aquariums and museums. Friends back home were all shocked and asked me: Are you sure it’s safe for her to go out by herself? My wife and I felt perfectly safe throughout our stay in China. I think more ordinary Americans should set aside their prejudices and come to China to experience it for themselves. Trust what you see with your own eyes, not rumors.
PD: How has public opinion in the US and China toward each other changed over the years?
Freeman: Today, as China’s comprehensive strength grows steadily, the Chinese people can see the fruits of development with their own eyes and feel progress across all areas firsthand. As a result, more young Chinese people no longer look up to foreign countries as they once did; instead, they view them on an equal footing.
Held back by weaknesses in basic education and a lack of global perspective, American society does not have an objective understanding of China. Many Americans fear China for no reason and always ask me strange questions: “Aren’t you afraid to go to China?” I am puzzled: “What’s there to be afraid of?” This is the misunderstanding and prejudice born out of ignorance about China. In recent years, with China relaxing its visa policies and lowering the threshold for long-term visas, it has become easier for many Americans to visit China, which is a great opportunity to enhance mutual understanding.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
I was surprised but not entirely shocked to receive this certificate of appreciation signed by the President of Ethiopia, H.E. Taye Atske Selassie.
I was one of the very few Americans, and the most vociferous, in defending the sovereignty of Ethiopia from the regime change attempt by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in their war against the nation-state of Ethiopia, from November 2020 to November 2022. I put my personal reputation on the line, and placed myself in opposition to my own government, who made known to me their disapproval of my actions. Defending Ethiopian sovereignty from an ethnic nationalist militia that was trying to remove the elected government of Ethiopia, was not a difficult decision for me, it was almost instinctive.
I have been involved in analyzing the political economies of African nations for almost four decades and have developed an extremely sensitive “political nose” if you will, to operations to destabilize and overthrow African nations. I knew in days, with certainty, that the TPLF initiated war, was part of a larger political operation, supported by the Western nations including the United States, to weaken and potentially remove, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from power. I never wavered in my support of the nation-state of Ethiopia during the war, and have remained steadfast today, while others have deserted the defense of Ethiopia.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam-Office of the Prime Minister
What Caused Me to Act?
For me, the actions of a government to develop its economy, by investing in infrastructure, and the expansion of its manufacturing and agricultural sectors are of extreme significance in determining its viability. I decided in 2010, to begin a more serious analysis of Ethiopia and its political economy. This led me to investigate its policies over previous decades and its plans for its future development. I published my analysis of Ethiopia’s commitment to economic growth on my website. My first visit to Ethiopia was in 2014, following three days of meetings in N’Djamena, Chad, where I was appointed the Vice Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Lake Chad Basin Commission. Since then, I have visited Ethiopia many times, often in defiance of the U.S. government, that was ordering Americans to leave Addis Ababa in 2021, offering to purchase tickets for their departure.
I was, and am aware today of the challenges in Ethiopia, especially the dangerous escalation of ethnic nationalism. However, it is Ethiopia’s overall commitment to progress, that surpasses that of other African nations, which has steered me to defend Ethiopia’s sovereignty. My awareness of Ethiopia’s intent to initiate the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), reinforced my views of Ethiopia’s commitment to the future. I supported the building of the GERD early on because of its importance in bringing electricity to this African nation and its neighbors to power their economies and people. I know very well that Africa’s huge deficit in electricity is killing Africans everyday across the continent. Subsequently, I visited the GERD twice and participated in the book launch of the most complete history of the GERD.* The GERD remains today, the most significant accomplishment in sub-Saharan Africa since the liberation movement freed African nations from British Imperialism. This fantastic water infrastructure project, has the potential to provide African nations with 5,150 megawatts of electrical power, dwarfing any other energy source on the continent.
The author standing in front of five of the thirteen completed waterways that deliver the water to the turbines.
The Ethiopians began planning for this magnificent dam in the 1960s, under the leadership of Emperor Haile Salaisse. Sixty years before the GERD was to begin operations, Ethiopia envisioned capturing the energy of the Blue Nile flowing down from lake Tana. Thus far, it is a singular accomplishment in Africa, by the Ethiopian people. Currently plans exist by Ethiopia to exploit the water rich Blue Nile Basin with the construction of additional water infrastructure projects.
After reading the history of the Ethiopia’s defeat of the Italian army on the battlefield of Adwa, on March 1st, 1896, I recognized the impetus for the bold thinking of the people of Ethiopia, to build this massive dam more than a century later. Ethiopia free from having never experiencing the shackles of colonialism, had higher aspirations for their nation’s future.
The Defeat of the Italian Army on March 1, 1896, prevented the European colonization of Ethiopia-Wikipedia
How DID I Know?
While western governments, international and regional media predicted that Ethiopia would collapse when the TPLF was marching south towards Addis Ababa; I knew that the Ethiopian people would not allow this to occur. Furthermore, I understood these false predictions as a form of psychological warfare to defeat the Ethiopian people. I stood virtually alone as a Westerner in my knowledge of the resilience and patriotism of the Ethiopian people. Addis Ababa was not invaded, Ethiopia did not fall, and the TPLF were forced to surrender. I was right. All my former and current colleagues and friends, and those who claim to know how geopolitical forces operate in Africa, who ridiculed me for my position in defense of Ethiopia, turned out to be dead wrong. How did I know?
I have trained myself to think differently. I’ve trained myself to withstand the force of public opinion, ridicule, and peer group pressure. I am able to reach a conclusion through the reasoning of my mind, founded on my knowledge of the people, the history of a nation, and the geopolitical intent of the West’s rules-based order. My actions are guided by decisions informed by reason, from which I will not waver unless persuaded by superior reasoning. This is what makes me valuable as an analyst and consultant, together with my expertise as a physical economist. Some countries, institutions, and thoughtful individuals recognize and appreciate my unique qualities, and thus are willing to collaborate with me. Others who are less thoughtful, do not.
*How this Happened: Demystifying The Nile,History and Events Leading to the Realization of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, by Dereje Befekadu Tessema
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Below is my article published by Xinhua news service on July 21, 2026
Column: Those who conjure up so-called “China Squeeze” ignore historical reality
Source: Xinhua-2026-07-21
A train stops at the Nagad railway station along the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway in Djibouti, Sept. 19, 2022. The Chinese-built 752.7-km-long Ethiopia-Djibouti standard gauge railway, also known as the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, is the first fully electrified trans-boundary railway on the African continent. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)
by Lawrence Freeman
A recent article published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) conveniently ignores the historical burden imposed on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) under the United States-led “rules-based order” following World War II.
The paper is riddled with historical distortions in a deliberate attempt to prove the authors’ presumption: China’s exports are responsible for crowding out space for the LMICs to develop their local manufacturing capacity. As a specialist in the political economy of sub-Saharan African nations and China-Africa relations, I can provide some light on this misleading narrative. While it is true that Africa-China trade reached a historically high level of 348 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, with African countries running a trade deficit of 102 billion dollars, the more important question is: how did this imbalance emerge?
Here the historical weakness of the paper under review is revealed. The opening sentence begins with a falsehood: “In the United States, President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs have drawn political force from the view that China’s surplus hollowed out American manufacturing.”
This is completely untrue. The U.S. willfully destroyed its own manufacturing sector beginning in the 1980s, when it adopted the policy of becoming a post-industrial society. The U.S. establishment decided at that time it would move away from being a manufacturing-based industrial society in favor of becoming the center of the financial world, with an expanding service sector, except for the production of armaments.
This was advertised in the Council on Foreign Relations magazine, Foreign Affairs, and implemented by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. At that time, China had no strong manufacturing capability. It neither possessed the ability to challenge the United States nor contributed to the shrinkage of America’s once powerful manufacturing sector.
Let us keep in mind the reality of the world economy: in the 1960s, the United States functioned as the world hegemon, leading the “rules-based order,” with a GDP around 10 times that of China’s. This only started to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the reform and opening-up drive led by Deng Xiaoping, which kicked off in China over the next forty years the greatest economic miracle that our planet has seen.
Again, taking Africa as an example, the United States and the West were in total control of the so-called free markets. The United States and the West had total control over the nations of Africa both politically and economically, as they did over much of the developing sector. China did not emerge as a major player in African economies until the 2000s. During the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the United States and the West ruled the financial institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, and they did nothing to build up the manufacturing capability of Africa. This is the truth, and this is egregiously absent from the PIIE report.
During that time there was no leader, except President John F. Kennedy, who was concerned to develop manufacturing capabilities in less-developed countries, especially Africa. What was done by the West, by the U.S., by the “rules-based order” was to extract wealth from African nations. Looting their natural resources, not development. This cannot be blamed on China.
Workers arrange clothes at a textile factory in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, on July 30, 2025. Lesotho is a small southern African country and one of the world’s least developed countries. Its economy is heavily dependent on textile exports. It exports over 50 percent of its garment products to the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Guansen)
Western policy never genuinely aimed to integrate Africa into the global manufacturing supply chain. Consequently, African economies today account for only about 3 percent of globally traded manufactured goods. This outcome is not a result of China crowding out lower-income countries’ industrial space. Rather, it is an uncomfortable reality that the PIIE and its ideologues are unwilling to confront, as acknowledging it would undermine their anti-China narrative, which is precisely why this factor is conspicuously absent from their report.
Africans suffer, actually die, from the lack of electricity, due to the willful decision not to invest in infrastructure by the West. This is what has prevented African nations from developing manufacturing capabilities. The lack of railroads is another element that is holding back the economic growth of African economies. Not China.
The failure to invest in the most critical component of an economy: infrastructure. This is the cause of the economic deficiency of African nations. Without infrastructure, you will not have a manufacturing sector. You will not have an industrialized economy. It is not the result of China squeezing Africa out of the market. The problems we have today in the LMICs, especially in Africa, are a result of willful decisions by the West not to develop these nations. This cannot be covered up by using mathematical formulas or refusing to report on what actually happened to the developing sector during the decades from 1960 through 2000, before China’s economy began to be a serious actor in the world economy.
“When the United States was the world’s economic hegemon after World War II, it created manufacturing and export space for others — first Japan, then the Asian Tigers, and eventually China itself,” claimed the authors in the conclusion part. However, there was never any intention by Western financial institutions to develop manufacturing capacities for low-and middle-income countries, and little to no investment in vital categories of infrastructure, which are necessary to build a robust manufacturing sector.
courtesy of pamirllc.com
The most irreconcilable historical reality that the authors failed to address in the narrative accusing China of preventing the development of the LMICs is this: From the 1940s until the year 2000, when China began to emerge as a successful economic power, the Western political-financial oligarchy had dominant control over the world economy. They, not China, failed to promote economic development in the LMICs for six decades.
China, to its credit, has advanced infrastructure development across our planet through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is unarguably the case that in Africa, without the BRI, the conditions of life for the majority of Africans would be much, much worse. To this day, no American president has joined or agreed to participate in the BRI, the largest global infrastructure program the world has ever undertaken.
Editor’s note: Lawrence Freeman is a U.S. political-economic analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over three decades. He is also a geopolitical analyst of U.S.-China relations.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.■
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
My long time friend and colleague Ed Spannaus, has recently authored, Busting the Myth of the “Abolitionist” British Monarchy. A fascinating historical essay on the history of the British Empire’s involvement in the slave trade, excerpted below. I would add, that my research on this topic indicates that the British continued to deport Africans into the second half of the nineteenth century. In other words, continued the slave trade while preaching “abolition” of slavery.
Excerpts follow:
Whenever my late wife Nancy would give a talk on her 2023 book Defeating Slavery, someone in the audience would invariably ask a question such as: “Well, weren’t the British ahead of the United States in abolishing slavery?” or “Weren’t the British more progressive than us when it came to opposing slavery?”
Those type of questions were, unwittingly, the product of a carefully cultivated image – especially by promoters and publicists of the Royal Family — that the Monarchy and the British in general were almost mere bystanders in the slave trade, abolitionists at heart, who got rid of that horrid institution as soon as they could possibly do so.
This myth of the benign, passive British monarchy is blown to pieces by a new book, The Crown’s Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas, written by Dr. Brooke Newman, a Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, and also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London.[i]
The liner notes for the book’s cover set the stage very succinctly:
For centuries, Britain has told itself and the world that it is an abolitionist nation, one that, unlike the United States, rejected human bondage and dismantled its Atlantic slave empire without tearing itself apart in violence. An abolitionist nation headed by a just, humane monarch who liberated enslaved Africans and recognized their descendants as free and equal subjects of the British Crown. As Prince Willam put it recently, “We’re very much not a racist family.”
This is the myth that Dr. Newman dismantles, receipt by receipt, royal charter by royal charter. While then-Prince Charles claimed in 2023 to have opened the Royal Archives to make slavery records more accessible, Newman points out that this did not involve any new release of records. The record of the Crown’s sponsorship and investment in the slave trade is not to be found in one set of archives, but is widely dispersed, fragmented, and deliberately designed to obscure the truth by “commodifying” enslaved human beings.
Ellizabeth I: The Beginnings
Newman takes this sordid story back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the mid-16th century, when British traders attempted to break into the Spanish and Portuguese near monopoly of the slave trade. In 1563, John Hawkins, a Plymouth-based merchant-adventurer, had kidnapped Africans from Portuguese slaving ships, and taken them across the Atlantic to be sold in the Spanish Caribbean. When Hawkins returned to England with his ships’ holds bursting with gold, jewelry, sugar, and other commodities, cash-strapped Elizabeth immediately understood the potential, and eagerly provided one of her largest warships in return for a share of the profits of his next slaving venture. His second trip was wildly successful, with Elizabeth and other investors reaping an estimated 60% return on their investment. As Newman puts it, Queen Elizabeth thus secured her legacy as the first English monarch – but certainly not the last – to profit directly from the transatlantic slave trade.
The Stuarts Expand the Slave Trade
The next significant expansion of transatlantic trade, and with it, the slave trade, is under the Stuarts. The English established a series of plantation colonies in the Caribbean in the early 17th century, and the planters, facing a shortage of indentured servants, quickly realized that enslaved Africans could be the solution to their labor shortage.
King James I, who had granted a monopoly to the Guinea Company is 1618, died in 1625, leaving a substantial Crown indebtedness to his successor, Charles I. Charles tried to handle this debt with revenue from Virginia tobacco and other crops which were raised in the Caribbean. Despite complaints from traders and merchants, Charles granted a 31-year monopoly to the Guinea Company in 1631. The first English colony to engage in the widespread use of slave labor was, ironically, the Puritan-founded colony of Providence off the coast of Nicaragua.
Cromwell’s “Western Design”
The Commonwealth period did not represent any pulling-back from England’s imperial aspirations. On the contrary, Oliver Cromwell played a critical role in the expanded use of England’s naval power to undergird an enlarged slave-labor empire in the Americas; this was known as Cromwell’s “Western Design” to challenge Spain’s colonial empire. The royal-chartered Guinea Company was re-oriented toward the slave trade from its previous concentration on gold and precious commodities. One of the Commonwealth’s “crowning” achievements was bringing Jamaica under English control. Jamaica’s eventual success in sugar production, along with the rise of Barbados, says Dr. Newman, “transformed the English Crown’s Atlantic Empire into a slave empire.”
The Stuart Restoration Invests in the Slave Trade
When Charles II succeeded to the throne in 1660 in the Stuart Restoration, he inherited enormous Crown debts accumulated by his late father, Charles I, and he embraced the imperial expansionism undertaken by Cromwell and the Commonwealth. Newman says the Restoration marked a decisive, aggressive shift into the monarchy’s direct financial and institutional investment into the slave trade and slave labor.
The restored King almost immediately granted exclusive trading rights on the West African coast to the aptly named Company of Royal Adventurers, a joint-stock company whose investors included a virtual “Who’s Who” of the Royal Family and its courtiers. Although the company’s charter was silent on the subject, secret instructions to the company from the King’s brother James (the Duke of York, and the Lord High Admiral) included trafficking in enslaved Africans; the slaves were to be sold to Spanish and Portuguese planters in Africa or Europe. But the slave trafficking quickly became trans-Atlantic, with the Royal Adventurers transporting large numbers of slaves to Jamaica and Barbados.
When the Royal Adventurers company was rechartered in 1663, its charter was explicit in giving the company exclusive rights – a royal monopoly — over the “buying and selling bartering and exchanging of for and with any Negro Slaves Goods wares and Merchandize whatsoever.” The monopoly was to be enforced by the Royal Navy. Half of the proceeds of any seizures – including slaves – was to go to the King, and the other half to the company’s subscribers or shareholders. James was appointed Governor of the Company.
The Company provided enslaved Africans to both English colonies in the Caribbean, and, by contract, 3000 Africans a year to the Spanish colonies.
Figure 1: The seal of “The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa” featured the coat of arms of the Duke of York, an elephant, and two Africans naked from the waist up. The Latin inscription is the company’s motto, Regio floret patrocinio commercium, commercioque Regnum, meaning “By royal patronage trade flourishes, by trade the realm.”
The Royal African Company Takes over the Slave Trade
In 1671, the Company of Royal Adventurers was reorganized, and the next year it was chartered as the Royal African Company (RAC). The RAC was granted exclusive control of all trade in African commodities (including “Negro Slaves”) for the modest term of one thousand years. The RAC was given state-like powers and privileges, including the power to declare war against any of the “heathen nations” along the African coast, and the power to erect Admiralty courts.
For a time, the Royal African Company dominated the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In the first decade of its existence, its share of the trade jumped from 33 percent to 74 percent. In fact, during the entire period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to an historian quoted by Dr. Newman, the RAC “shipped more enslaved African women, men, and children to the Americas than any other single institution.”
Seal of the Royal African Company
During the reigns of Charles II and James II (1672 to 1688), the RAC is estimated to have shipped 100,000 slaves to the Americas, the vast majority to the English Caribbean colonies. Approximately 76,000 survived the passage. By the early 1720s, the RAC had transported more than 150,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
The proceeds and profits flowed directly to the Royal Family, especially to James, first as the Duke of York, and then as James II. To emphasize the point, the Duke’s initials, “DY” were branded onto the bodies of hundreds of slaves, including children, who were owned directly by the RAC and held at the company’s headquarters as “Castle Slaves.”…
George I and the South Sea Company
The new Hanoverian King, George I, immediately proved to be an enthusiastic backer of the SSC, including providing naval support, and displayed great optimism for the future of the slave trade to Spanish America. His eldest son George, now the Prince of Wales, requested SSC shares, and became its Governor. Documents survive to this day which demonstrate the extensive links between George I, George II, and the slave-trading South Sea Company.
Despite their efforts, the SSC fell short of meeting its quota under the asiento. Between 1714 and 1718, the SSC shipped 13,102 enslaved African to Spanish America – of which only 10,521 survived the trans-Atlantic journey. This fell well short of the 19,200 healthy enslaved Africans the SSC was obliged to supply.
Meanwhile, the contraband slave trade flourished, among Jamaican smugglers and others, and this cut into the SSC’s efforts. To attempt to stem this “illegal” trade, SSC directors ordered their agents to brand African men, women, and children with the SSC company mark (see illustration). These royal symbols encouraged people to buy shares, i.e. “invest,” in the South Sea Company.
Figure 3: South Sea Company Mark. Source: The Crown’s Silence, p. 167.
A Bubble Floating on the Slave Trade
With the King and the Prince of Wales ostentatiously pouring investments into the SSC, the public eagerly snapped up SSC shares, driving up their price. But in August 1720, share prices began to drop sharply; between August 17 and Sept. 28, SSC shares fell from £1000 to £190, bankrupting many who had borrowed money to buy SSC stock.
In her recent talk at the Library of Virginia, Dr. Newman emphasized that the SSC “was not just a Ponzi scheme, even though that’s typically how we think about it now.”
She reported that the company had transported a total of about 43,000 Africans to the Americas. In her book, she notes the importance of the monarchy-sponsored slave trade in providing revenues used to increase the government’s surplus, and for building up the military capacity undergirding the rise of the British Empire.
George II and the “King’s Negroes”
When the Prince of Wales succeeded to the throne in 1727, he was already deeply immersed in the SSC and the slave trade, and it was a simple matter for him to continue as Governor of the SSC. George II became the first British monarch to directly buy and own slaves, when his Royal Navy began to purchase “seasoned Negroes, boys and men,” to labor in the naval shipyards in Jamaica. These men and boys, and later women and girls, became known as the “King’s Negroes.”
It was during the reign of George II that Britain came to dominate the trans-Atlantic slave trade, surpassing Portugal.
As Dr. Newman puts it, “Britain’s eighteenth-century empire was a slave empire and the Caribbean colonies its linchpin.” Slave-produced sugar became the most important commodity in Britain’s world trade, and taxes on sugar imports grew into the largest single source of revenue to the Crown.
In the first half of the 18th century alone, British ships took 975,000 captives from African shores, of which 167,000 died during the Atlantic crossing. Most of the survivors landed in the Caribbean slave colonies, primarily Jamaica and Barbados; others were taken to Britain’s North American colonies and sold there.[ii]
French expansion in the Caribbean and North America threatened all this, and the British public favored an aggressive policy toward France, leading to the outbreak of war in 1756 (known as the Seven Years War in Europe, and as the French and Indian War in North America).
The above map, showing the volume and direction of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, can be found on p. 12 of Nancy Spannaus’s Defeating Slavery book, and was reproduced by permission of Yale University Press.
George III: The Empire fractures
In 1760, George III inherited the British slave empire as well as the global war that was launched to defend it.
As a teenaged Prince of Wales, George had expressed reservations about slavery, but as King, he cast whatever compunctions he had aside, and quickly came to regard slavery as a necessary evil. Newman says he went further, utilizing enslaved people for his benefit. He attempted to consolidate the British territorial gains during the war, by using slave labor to transform these new colonial territories into profitable agricultural colonies using the model of Jamaica.
An example of how aggressively King George III pursued this policy is Cuba. In 1762, Spanish Havana fell to the British. At the end of the war, Cuba was returned to Spain as part of a deal in which Spain ceded all of Spanish Florida east of the Mississippi to Britain.
But meanwhile, in the just ten months during which Britain occupied Cuba, its enslaved population increased by 80 percent! This was accompanied by a rapid growth of Cuba’s emerging sugar industry, based on slave labor. The legacy, historians have noted, was a lasting one.
Dr. Newman points to something that Nancy Spannaus stressed in her Defeating Slavery book –- that the Crown repeatedly rejected, and vetoed, efforts by Virginia and other colonies to regulate and curtail the slave trade. This was one of the major grievances cited by American patriots during the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence. And what angered the colonists even more, was that the same monarch who had perpetuated the slave trade was now encouraging those slaves to rise up against the Americans in support of the King – Virginia’s weakened and desperate Governor Dunmore being a prime example of this.
British “Abolition:” Slavery by Another Name
After the Revolutionary War in America, a strong and articulate movement for the abolition of slavery took hold in England, led in part by two former enslaved men. But the monarchy dug in its heels in opposition, with one of the royals, William, the Duke of Clarence, being particularly outspoken in the House of Lords against abolition and in support of enslavers. The sole exception to the Royal Family’s rock-solid unanimity on the subject of slavery and the slave trade was cousin Frederick William, the Duke of Gloucester, who sided with the abolitionists. King George III privately saw his own priority as defending and expanding the British Empire, which he saw as threatened by an end to slavery. In public, he of course stayed above the fray, as required by his position.
In 1807, over Royal opposition, Parliament passed the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. While prohibiting British ships from carrying out the slave trade as of January 1, 1808, Brooke Newman points out, “this made little impact on the lives of the seven hundred thousand individuals who remained enslaved in the Caribbean.”
The pro-abolition Duke of Gloucester was quickly recruited to the “African Institution,” a group formed by William Wilberforce and other abolitionists to bring “civilization and improvement” to Africa. But this actually meant (in Dr. Newman’s words), “the imposition of British norms and economic ambitions” upon Africa, which the Institution regarded as “sunk in ignorance and barbarism.” They also held the view that if Africans rejected the Institution’s civilizing mission, this would itself prove the necessity and worthiness of British intervention.
The Africa Institution saw as one of its highest priorities, ensuring the enforcement of the Abolition Act. What did this mean?
The Abolition Act declared slave ships and their cargo contraband, eligible for capture and seizure. To reduce its own expenses and to enforce the law, the Crown “incentivized” anti-slave-trade activities, by demanding the conscription of Africans freed from slave ships into indentured servitude, involuntary apprenticeships, or military service. “Liberation” was no such thing.
African men, women, and children who were seized from slave ships by the Royal Navy were, in legal terms, “condemned as prize of war, or as forfeited, to the sole use of his Majesty, his heirs, and successors” — as stated in official Colonial Office documents.
And, to further “incentivize” such practices, British military officers were awarded financial rewards for each man (£40), woman (£30), and child under age 14 (£10), who were captured and handed over to colonial authorities.
In other words, Africans “liberated” from slavery lost any freedom of choice and action, for the rest of their lives. As Dr. Newman puts it, “this was essentially slavery by another name.”
The same practice was enshrined in the 1833 Emancipation Act, to which King William IV gave his assent, after Parliament passed the bill under enormous public pressure.
The Emancipation Act supposedly abolished slavery in the British Empire. But, as with the earlier Abolition Act, the bill simply established a new form of bondage in the Caribbean colonies, in order to preserve the plantation system. £20 million in compensation was paid to slave owners out of the public treasury – what one might call “reparations for the enslavers” — while “freed” slaves got nothing. And worse, they were apprenticed to their former enslavers for four to six years; the apprenticeship system meant working up to 45 hours per week without pay. Infractions by “former” slaves would result in floggings, whipping, and hard labor in workhouses or penal gangs. They remained destitute and propertyless. (There were obvious parallels to what happened with emancipated blacks in the defeated Confederacy after the U.S. Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction.)
(British taxpayers – not the monarchy – remained on the hook for at least 175 years for the loans that the British government took out to fund the £20 million compensation paid to enslavers. Taxpayers didn’t finish paying off these loans – worth billions in today’s money — until 2015.)…
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
Mr. Gyude Moore, in his essay below, has highlighted the most important challenge for African nations in determining their future. Will African nations create robust manufacturing industries? Manufacturing and infrastructure, especially railroads and power generation, are the two most essential elements to maintain a healthy physical economy. In order to feed the population and provide a quality standard of living, African nations must become industrialized. To achieve peace and prosperity, the level of the physical economy must be sufficiently developed to meet the material needs of its population. This requires eradicating poverty, eliminating hunger, and providing citizens with meaningful productive employment. Without a manufacturing sector and a density of infrastructure, nations will not survive, and the people will suffer undue hardships.
President Franklin Roosevelt defined freedom from want as the universal right to basic economic security: having enough food, shelter, jobs, and free from the threat of extreme poverty. No nation has attained prosperity nor has it become economically sovereign, without a robust manufacturing sector. Until recent decades, manufacturing thrived in the the United States, China has achieved this in the last two generations.
As Mr. Moore writes, now is the time for African nations to fulfill that goal.
How China Forced Europe to Reconsider Africa’s Industrialization by W. Gyude Moore, May 28, 2026
Excerpts below. Emphasis added.
Europe’s retreat from slavery was not driven by moral enlightenment alone. Religious and philosophical objections to slavery had existed for centuries. They became politically decisive only when changes in production, power, and elite incentives made abolition compatible with Britain’s national interest. Societies often tolerate moral critiques for long periods until material conditions shift the coalition structure around them. A similar inflection point may now be emerging in the economic relationship between Africa and Europe.
For decades African leaders – Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Julius Nyerere – and academics like Samir Amin, made a simple argument to Europe and the broader industrialized world: a continent cannot sustainably develop if it participates in the global economy primarily as a supplier of raw materials and a consumer of finished goods.
That argument was often dismissed as ideological, or just nostalgia from the independence era. African calls for beneficiation, industrialization, and value addition were treated as economically unsophisticated or politically protectionist. The global division of labor was presented as natural and efficient. Africa would export ores, cocoa, timber, tea, oil, and agricultural commodities. Others would process, refine, manufacture, brand, finance, and capture the overwhelming share of value. That arrangement persisted for decades because it worked for those already occupying the commanding heights of the global economy.
When manufacturing migrated from Europe and North America to Asia, many African policymakers hoped this would create space for industrial activity on the continent. Instead, the old hierarchy largely relocated. Africa still exported raw materials. The processing, branding, financing, and technological learning moved elsewhere. Today, iron ore and bauxite still leave as direct shipping ore and concentrates. Cocoa leaves as raw beans. Timber leaves as logs or rough-cut lumber.
The argument African leaders made repeatedly was not complicated. A continent that exports low-value commodities while importing expensive manufactured products will eventually encounter structural limits to prosperity. It will remain vulnerable to commodity cycles, deteriorating terms of trade, foreign exchange instability, and persistent external dependence. More fundamentally, it will never accumulate the industrial capabilities that generate durable national wealth.
That argument rarely found receptive audiences in Europe because Europe occupied the advantageous end of the arrangement. Until now.
Europe is increasingly confronting a version of the same vulnerability African states have warned about for generations. China’s extraordinary industrial rise has altered the geometry of the global economy. Europe no longer faces merely a low-cost manufacturing competitor. It increasingly faces the prospect of strategic industrial dependence.
Chinese firms dominate or threaten dominance across sectors central to the next industrial era: batteries, solar, electric vehicles, refining, rare earth processing, steel, consumer manufacturing, and increasingly advanced industrial machinery. Europe now worries openly about deindustrialization, supply chain vulnerability, and excessive dependence on external manufacturing ecosystems.
That means Liberia should not remain an exporter of direct shipping ore if pelletization can be done near Buchanan. Guinea should not remain primarily a bauxite exporter if alumina refining can be financed. Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo should move beyond copper and cobalt concentrates into semi-fabricated products and battery precursor materials. Cocoa producers should export more cocoa liquor, butter, cake, and powder rather than raw beans. Kenyn tea, Ethiopian and Ugandan coffee tea should be exported as branded and semi-processed products rather than bulk commodity. Timber should leave as furniture, panels, flooring, and engineered wood products, not merely logs or rough cuts. African industrial policy should focus less on immediately replicating East Asian electronics manufacturing and more on systematically climbing value chains already rooted in African comparative advantages.
This does not require autarky. It does not require hostility toward Europe or China. And it certainly does not require pretending Africa can industrialize in isolation. The goal is not sudden industrial transformation, but a steady rise in the complexity and value of what Africa already exports. Every successful industrial region in history protected, financed, subsidized, and nurtured its movement up the value chain. Europe did. The United States did. East Asia did. China certainly did.
Africa now has leverage it has not possessed in decades. Europe needs diversified industrial partnerships. The whole world needs African minerals. Europe needs alternative processing ecosystems.
The test of Europe’s seriousness beyond the rhetoric of Macron in East Africa or Meloni and her Mattei Plan, is whether Europe is willing to support the difficult conditions required for African industrialization alongside African governments. Lower-cost capital, energy infrastructure, technology transfer, market access, logistics systems, and tolerance for African industrial policy will matter far more than speeches about sovereignty.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
An aerial drone photo shows U.S. carmaker Tesla’s Megafactory in Shanghai, east China, Feb. 8, 2025. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)
Below is from an interview with Xinhua regarding Xi-Trump May 14-15 summit in Beijing.
Source: Xinhua, Editor: huaxia, 2026-05-28
Interview: China, U.S. have shared interests for cooperation, says U.S. economist
U.S. economist says stronger trade, infrastructure and manufacturing ties would benefit both countries and support global stability.Xinhua reports on interview with Freeman
by Xinhua writer Liu Yanan
NEW YORK, May 28 (Xinhua) — China and the United States can have economic cooperation and collaboration on multiple fronts, and there is no objective reason for antagonisms to exist between the two countries, a U.S. economist has said.
As the world’s two largest economies, both nations can benefit from increased trade and the exchange of ideas, said Lawrence Freeman, a U.S.-based physical economist, in a recent interview with Xinhua.
“If the United States partners with China, which there is no reason not to, the rest of the world will react positively,” Freeman told Xinhua.
He noted that China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been a vital source to African and other nations in providing vital infrastructure.
The world needs physical, not monetary, economic growth to end poverty and hunger, which are the primary causes of instability, the economist said.
Stability and peace can be achieved by improving the living conditions of all nations and all people, he added.
Freeman also spoke highly of China’s “win-win” approach to foreign policy and criticized the harmful “zero-sum game” approach.
“Each nation benefits from the growth and development of other nations. The more nations that are industrialized, the more their economies will require capital goods produced in other nations,” he said.
China’s prowess in manufacturing could also serve cooperation between the two nations, Freeman said.
“China has become a model of how to achieve manufacturing and industrial growth, which should be emulated by the United States instead of being maligned,” he added.■
Excerpts from Freeman’s response:
China’s “win-win” approach to foreign policy is far superior to the diseased “zero-sum game” approach. The world is not fixed; it is not governed by survival of the strongest. Our planet, our universe, is constantly growing and expanding, propelled by human creativity. Each nation benefits from the growth and development of other nations. The more nations that are industrialized the more their economies will require capital goods produced in other nations. Stability and peace can be achieved by improving the living conditions of all nations and all people. nations should understand and adopt what was stipulated at the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia: the benefit to the other is a benefit to thyself.
China is the leading manufacturing nation in the world. Only the combined manufacturing output of the U.S. and Europe is more than China. This speaks volumes about China’s approach to building up their economy over the last forty-five years. Massive investments by China, in categories of hard infrastructure; energy and rail transportation in particular, have been indispensable to its growth.
The U.S. has lost almost five million manufacturing jobs in this century, over 100,000 since President Trump took office in January 2025. Foolish leaders of the U.S. did this to America, not China. The U.S. destroyed its own economy by shrinking its manufacturing sector and failing to invest in infrastructure. A robust manufacturing sector is essential for the prosperity of a nation. China has become a model of how to achieve manufacturing and industrial growth, which should be emulated by the U.S. instead of being maligned. It is also a model for the rest of the world in how to achieve manufacturing superiority in approximately two generations.
People who talk about “de-coupling” the U.S. from China are dangerous fools, who understand nothing about physical economics. Despite the bravado of some, the U.S. would never survive this severing, but China would. China dominates supply chains of refined critical and rare earth minerals. China understood the need to develop these resources decades before the U.S. It cannot be reversed by the U.S. simply ordering China or other nations to acquiesce, or by U.S. bullying other nations by threatening them with abusive tariffs.
China has succeeded because it understood that to develop its economy and provide for its people, it needed: a strong manufacturing sector; extensive infrastructure; a commitment to scientific research, particularly space exploration; and discovering new valuable natural resources. This “full-set economy” approach is not unique and can be replicated by other nations. The U.S. once understood this and can again.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
In my thirty minute discussion on OBN, with Addis Assefa, I outline the fundamental national interests of Ethiopia and how to achieve them.April 10, 2026.
June 21, 2026
The government of Ethiopia has two primary obligations to its citizens. One, to adopt policies that lead to a continuous improvement in the standard of living of the entire population. Two, to safeguard and preserve the integrity of Ethiopia as a nation state, emphasizing the quality of Ethiopian citizenship as opposed to a so called ethnic-nationalist identity.
The vulnerabilities to the Ethiopian state, like any nation, emanate from lack of economic development of its society. Poor people become desperate people, and desperate people can be manipulated to act against the interest of their nation. Therefore, government must initiate policies and programs that significantly reduce, if not eliminate poverty, and substantially raise the wages of its citizens. A national development agenda that is inclusive of all regions and ethnicities of Ethiopia is the best method for achieving Ethiopia’s two fundamental national interests. If citizens perceive that their government is pursuing efforts to improve their lives they will respond supportively.
The creation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the GERD, is not only a singular accomplishment for Ethiopia and its people, but for all of Africa. It indicates the potential of Ethiopia to address other economic and societal challenges. It provides desperately needed electricity, not only to Ethiopia but to other nations in East Africa. While Addis Ababa has been transformed over the last decade, other regions of Ethiopia require the same attention and infusions of infrastructure. Agriculture has vastly improved, especially in wheat production, through farm collectives and the expanded use of irrigation. Manufacturing has increased, but Ethiopia, like every nation who desires to achieve economic sovereignty, requires a robust indigenous manufacturing sector.
Ethiopian diaspora correctly supported the government of Abiy Ahmed in its two year war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). If this regime-change war initiated by the TPLF had been successful, the nation of Ethiopia would have been destroyed, leaving behind warring ethnic fiefdoms. Victory by the government of Ethiopia was existential. Following the peace agreement, Ethiopian diaspora in the U.S., with the vast majority of their allies, have lined up in support of one or another of ethnic nationalist groups, who are once again involved in regime change.
Watch my thirty minute discussion above, to understand the best approach for Ethiopia to realize its true national interests
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X@lkfreemansafrica
